This invention is a vertical takeoff aerial vehicle with significantly improved energy efficiency as compared to other vertical takeoff aerial vehicles. Benefits include lower cost vehicles, passive flight stability features, and reduced energy consumption.
Low cruising energy efficiency is a problem of alternative vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aerial vehicles. Confinement to takeoff and landing is a problem with most fixed-wing aircraft.
A design objective of this invention is a transitioning VTOL that is simple, robust, light weight, and scalable. Herein, “passively controlled” and “Passively-Adjusting” refer to control without use of an actuator with a range of dampening features to promote stability. Dampening features can be as simple as the mass of an object that gives the object increased momentum or more complex like an automobile's shock absorber. An actuator includes but is not limited to devices such as electric motors and valves.
Actuators are known to be able move a propeller's motor relative to a fuselage. The term “statically” indicates that a motor is connected to a fuselage or wing in a set position relative to that fuselage or wing.
Related art includes such items as “freewings” which are typically wings that freely rotate along a spanwise axis and “tiltwings” which are typically wings with propellers or jets attached and are typically controlled in position by actuators. The tiltwings of the claims of this invention are passively controlled rather than actively controlled with actuators—often, passively controlled includes indirectly controlling such as using a propeller to change vehicle velocity relative to air wherein the relative velocity of air controls tiltwing position.
A tiltwing has both a thrust vector and lift-generating wing-like surfaces. A tiltwing may be comprised of a single wing having a wingspan many times larger than the width of the fuselage. Alternatively, the tiltwing may be comprised of two smaller wings connected by a shaft that goes through the vehicle. Alternatively, a tiltwing may be comprised of a with having a width similar to the fuselage and positioned in front of the fuselage.